Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has no plans for big, expensive campaigns to try to get Detroiters to be counted in the 2010 Census, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The city can’t afford it, and Bing feels it’s time to face reality and scale back city services to match its smaller population. The city of Detroit encompasses 139 square miles, about 40 of which are vacant, the Journal said. In contrast, the District of Columbia has an area of 68 square miles. What could you do with those extra 40 square miles? You could farm it, or you could turn it back into the carbon-sucking forest of oak and maple trees that it was before the white people settled it 300 years ago.

To me. it seems, the difficulty is: how do you shrink the geographic boundaries enough so that the city can provide adequate police, fire and city services to its core neighborhoods? What happens to the owner of the one or two last occupied houses left on the east Detroit blocks shown below? Detroit already has 10,000 homes scheduled for demolition.

I applaud Mayor Bing for trying to right-size city services and expectations. But it will surely be an arduous process that will take decades.

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